RightatNYU said:
Everyone has free choice here - I don't see how it drives up the price of cultural events. If a performer chooses to sell his tickets for 10 dollars, and someone gets some tickets and sells them for 50, then that shows that the show was worth 50 to some people.
And those people paid fifty dollars for something when they could have paid ten. How is that not driving the price up?
I might point out that yes, everyone had a free choice there-- except for the folk that couldn't have afforded the fifty dollar scalper's fee. They're being denied access to something the performer and the venue wanted them to have access to-- by someone who's considerably less interested in the performance itself.
And when the scalper can't sell all of his inflated tickets, fewer people get to see the show. There's a lot of performers for whom that matters more than the ticket sales-- especially since they usually lose money on tours.
RightatNYU said:
Of course, if a scalper manages to sell 60% of 10 dollar tickets for 50 bucks, maybe the performer should start charging 50 himself.
Maybe he should, if he wants the extra money. But don't you reckon that's his prerogative?
Then again, if the ticket sellers didn't have to adjust their prices for scalper inflation, maybe they could make more money themselves while still filling seats.
RightatNYU said:
So I would agree that performers/ticketmaster should take it upon themselves to limit this, through not offering large group pre-sales. The idea of price controls just doesn't sit that well with me.
I agree with you on the first part-- it's really a better avenue of control than government regulation, and allows for more flexibility on the part of performers and ticket vendors. Assuming, of course, that performers-- who I consider the more important party-- aren't subject to monopolistic control of venues by ticket vendors. (Really a separate issue.)
As for the latter, I'm not arguing for price controls at all. Allow the performers and the vendors to set whatever prices they want; people will either pay them or not. However, I don't support allowing outside agencies to interfere with the pricing by inserting themselves as unnecessary and undesired middle-men.
RightatNYU said:
Tickets for the concert were only given out in NYC, and they were given out indiscriminately. Thus, a large proportion of the people who got tickets didn't really care for Dave Matthews Band. ... I enabled people who didnt happen to live in NYC the chance to experience the show at a price that was obviously worthwhile to them...
You make a fair point. If the tickets had been distributed in some other fashion-- such that people had to request them-- then my criticism would have been more on-point.
Your conduct was also considerably less odious than scalpers, who deliberately seek to acquire tickets-- beating the fans to them-- so that they can sell those tickets to the people who should have been able to buy them at the vendor's price.
RightatNYU said:
Plus, by the end, they allowed everyone in anyways. :mrgreen:
Well, in that case, it's obviously no harm done. :smile: